Divers Women eBook

“Splendid weather for crops. A man with
such a farm as mine on his hands, and so backward
with his work, rather grudges such Sundays as these
this time of year.”

And the other?

“Yes,” he says, laughing, “you could
spare the time better if it rained, I dare say.
By the way, Dunlap, have you sold that horse yet?
If not, you better make up your mind to let me have
it at the price I named. You won’t do better
than that this fell.”

Whereupon ensued a discussion on the respective merits
and demerits, and the prospective rise and fall in
horse-flesh.

“Take heed what ye do; let the fear of the Lord
be upon you.” Had those two gentlemen
heard that text?

CHAPTER II.

SOME PEOPLE WHO FORGOT THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT.

Let me introduce to you the Harrison dinner-table,
and the people gathered there on the afternoon of
that Sabbath day. Miss Lily had brought home
with her her cousin Jim; he was privileged on the score
of relationship. Miss Helen, another daughter
of the house, had invited Mr. Harvey Latimer; he was
second cousin to Kate’s husband, and Kate was
a niece of Mrs. Harrison; relationship again.
Also, Miss Fannie and Miss Cecilia Lawrence were there,
because they were schoolgirls, and so lonely in boarding-school
on Sunday, and their mother was an old friend of Mrs.
Harrison; there are always reasons for things.

The dinner-table was a marvel of culinary skill.
Clearly Mrs. Harrison’s cook was not
a church-goer. Roast turkey, and chicken-pie,
and all the side dishes attendant upon both, to say
nothing of the rich and carefully prepared dessert,
of the nature that indicated that its flankiness was
not developed on Saturday, and left to wait
for Sunday. Also, there was wine on Mrs. Harrison’s
table; just a little home-made wine, the rare juice
of the grape prepared by Mrs. Harrison’s own
cook—­not at all the sort of wine that others
indulged in—­the Harrisons were temperance
people.

“I invited Dr. Selmser down to dinner,”
remarked Mrs. Harrison, as she sipped her coffee.
“I thought since his wife was gone, it would
be only common courtesy to invite him in to get a warm
dinner, but he declined; he said his Sunday dinners
were always very simple.”

Be it known to you that Dr. Selmser was Mrs. Harrison’s
pastor, and the preacher of the morning sermon.

Miss Lily arched her handsome eyebrows.

“Oh, mamma!” she said, “how could
you be guilty of such a sin! The idea
of Dr. Selmser going out to dinner on Sunday!
I wonder he did not drop down in a faint! Papa,
did you ever hear such a sermon?”

“It slashed right and left, that is a fact,”
said Mr. Harrison, between the mouthfuls of chicken
salad and oyster pickle.

“A little too sweeping in its scope to be wise
for one in his position. Have another piece of
the turkey, James? He is running into that style
a little too much. Some person whose opinion has
weight ought to warn him. A minister loses influence
pretty rapidly who meddles with everything.”